Your outdoor space is not complete without landscape lighting. Not only can you highlight your home or key areas of your yard, but you can improve the safety of your property by providing adequate lighting. Therefore, these are tips for designing your landscape lighting.
Choose Your Highlight Features
Your first task is to decide which items in your landscape you want to highlight. Consulting with landscape lighting design St Louis MO can help you determine what object lighting will have the greatest impact. For example, lighting interesting trees that frame a path or doorway has a significantly greater impact than lighting trees at the back of your yard in a grove. If you have statues, fountains or another décor item that you want to highlight, write it down.
Don’t forget to light your paths and hardscapes as well as any buildings in your yard.
Choose Your Lighting Type
You have a wide variety of landscape lighting that you can choose from. You may choose spotlights to focus on trees, shrubberies or other focal points. You might use string lights to light your decks and patios from above. You can use underwater lighting to up light fountains, ponds and pools.
Choose Your Lighting Effects
Next, you need to choose the effects of your lighting. You can create interesting shadows when you light from below. Create silhouettes by concealing your lights behind plants. You can also mount lights in the trees to create a downlighting effect. For a three-dimensional look, you can light an object from two sides so the lights cross. Soft lights placed up high can also create the effect of moonlight.
Determine How You Will Conceal Your Lights
Finally, you may have lights that need to be concealed, especially the lighting source, such as cords and plugs. The light may be visible, but you don’t want to see electrical cords all over your property. Therefore, determine what lights can be solar and how you can conceal the lights of those that aren’t.
You can have an attractive, safe, well-lit landscape with a little help from a lighting designer.
